Martin Fish is starting off his summer feast
I’m looking forward to tucking into all the things I’m growing now
In our house, summer means salads and, to ensure we have a supply of fresh produce to see us through, I’ve already made a start. I grow a selection of lettuce, mixed salad leaves, spring onion, radish, tomatoes and cucumber in the polytunnel.
The tomato plants are already growing in the heated greenhouse and within the next week or two I can start to bring them into the polytunnel to grow on, but it’ll be July before we get our first ripe tomatoes. As for cucumbers, I wait until early May before I sow the seeds as I find when it’s warmer the plants germinate, establish and crop so much better that when sown early in cool conditions. I hear of so many cucumber plants bought in April that fail because of cool conditions, so it really is best to be patient and wait a few more weeks.
With most of the other salad crops though I can get started now. In fact, I already have! A month or so ago I sowed lettuce seeds and these were pricked out into cell trays and grown on in the greenhouse, which is kept frost free. For the past week, the plants have been in the polytunnel to acclimatise to the cooler conditions and are now large enough to plant out. I grow a selection of different lettuce and as the season goes on I’ll add more variety, but for now it’s some mixed oakleaf lettuce and a butterhead type that’ll make a loose head.
The young lettuce plants go into the border around 10- 15cm (4-6in) apart, where they’ll soon settle in and start to grow. I’ve already got more seedlings growing in the greenhouse and from now on I’ll sow a tray of mixed varieties every two or three weeks. That way we’ll have fresh lettuce and salad leaves when we want them.